the Devil You Know
by madame.alexandra
Summary: Ziva has dragged Jenny with her to the DMV while she waits to get her license, and in the meantime, decides she's Dr. Phil. Short drabble. No angst! Jenny/Ziva: friendship: girl talk! faintly jibbs, and chock full of Ziva butchering English idioms.


_A/N: I don't know, I was listening to the new P!nk album and I opened up a document to write and this came out instead of the chapter of the Sixth I was working on. I would apologize, but I like it! _

_"No one else can break my heart like you can." P!nk; "True Love"._

* * *

Jenny flared her nostrils impatiently and sighed through slightly parted lips, crossing her legs primly and splaying her fingers delicately against her temple as she shifted in an attempt to get comfortable. She licked her index finger and flicked to the next page in the inane magazine she was reading, silently cursing the egregious lack of efficiency exemplified by the DMV.

Her eyes scanned word after word on the glossy page in front of her, and when she realized she'd just read the same catty comment about so-and-so's latest red carpet look for the fifth time, she dubiously stopped reading and just glared balefully at the page.

She was relieved to have taken a day off work, but she was not so thrilled to have agreed to spend it in the waiting room of a different government agency—a more obnoxious one, one that required much more paperwork and much less diligence.

She cut her eyes at the woman sitting next to her, intent on catching her friend in the throes of miserable tedium, but instead her companion was sitting formally, with neatly held back shoulders and politely folded hands—and she happened to be looking with mild curiosity at Jenny.

Jenny lifted her head and narrowed her eyes.

Ziva quirked an eyebrow and smiled.

"There are now only four people in front of me," the Israeli announced smugly.

Jenny whistled sarcastically.

"Only _four_?" she mocked. She licked her lips and shook her head threateningly, flicking to the next page in the magazine. "If you do not pass the driver's exam this time, Ziva..." she warned, trailing off.

Ziva grinned wryly and leaned back, looking a little too confident.

"Have faith in me, Jenny," she said proudly. "I have my good luck charm."

Jenny made a face and rolled her eyes.

"Not that old half of a handkerchief you blew your nose on before you made that sniper shot in Cairo?" she asked distastefully.

"Do not be silly," Ziva said, waving her hand, and choosing not to tell Ziva she did have that superstitious item tucked into her boot. She smirked and tilted her head at the redhead. "_You_."

"Me?"

"You," Ziva repeated, nodding. "Ever single time you drove with me in Eastern Europe, I managed to get from Point X to Z without any injuries or incidents."

"A to B," Jenny corrected mildly. "Ah, Eastern Europe," she reflected, flicking through another page.

She glared at the digital screen that displayed Ziva's DMV number as way too far down on the list.

"You are very bored, Jenny?" the Mossad officer asked.

"Well, after last night's vodka martinis and Sex and the City marathon, anything's boring," she said dryly.

Of course she was _bored_—was Ziva an idiot? They'd been in the damn DMV for three hours!

"Would continuing last night's conversation entertain you?"

"_No_," Jenny answered firmly, and shot Ziva a cool glare.

Ziva held up her hands loftily, washing her hands of blame.

"Do not blame me for the topics you choose when you are drunk."

"Shut-up, Ziva," Jenny growled balefully.

Ziva knew damn well all she had to do was change the subject and Jenny would have stopped running her mouth on and on about that bastard Leroy Jethro Gibbs. It was too bad Ziva's time in America had influenced her enough that she liked to _gossip_ now.

"I was pondering all that you said," Ziva said, ignoring her friend.

"Ziva," Jenny sighed, shaking her head warningly.

"You and Gibbs never work," Ziva went on cheerily, "You have told me bits and pieces before, you told me much last night, over and over you fight and you break up, and then you sleep together constantly, but each of you gets made at each other for that—"

"Jesus, Ziva," muttered Jenny.

"It is baffling to me. You tell me you had a good relationship with him in Italy, but a poor one in Prague, and then a good one in Paris, until you-what were your words? Ran with your tail between your ears?"

"Legs," Jenny said with a wince. "This is _humiliating_."

Ziva David, pride of Mossad, _continued_ to _ignore_ her American friend and blithely went on, truly fascinated by what she had decided was her first experience with a real, honest-to-god friend and an American whirlwind Romance reminiscent of _Casablanca_.

"You are mad at Gibbs now, even—"

"I am not _mad_ at Agent Gibbs."

"You said you were last night."

"Ziva, you have to understand that when I am drunk, I am _always_ mad at Gibbs."

"Well that speaks to something in and of itself," Ziva pointed out sagely. "You are mad at Gibbs because of the redhead who brings him his glasses. He will not tell you who she is and you want to know if he is sleeping with her, even though he has been with you the past two weekends."

Jenny slammed her hand down and stared at Ziva.

"I _know_ I didn't tell you I've been sleeping with him for the past month," she snapped, narrowing her eyes. "_How do you know that_?"

Ziva blinked calmly. She reached over, plucked a tube of lipstick from Jenny's purse, and held it up mildly.

"The same colour," she said, "is on Gibbs' neck Monday mornings."

Jenny closed her eyes slowly, her cheeks flushing. So much for discretion.

"Anyway," Ziva said briskly, "I have been thinking about it, as I said. You and Gibbs have an, how do you call it? On again, off again relationship? You are like a light switch, or I do not know what to say," she explained, brow furrowed. "Perhaps like that young couple in the popular film, _The Notebook_?"

"No," Jenny retorted indignantly. She gave Ziva an annoyed look. "Jethro and I are nothing like that; we won't ever end up together," she said simply.

Ziva pointed at Jenny intently.

"Ah, that is what I was wanting to ask you," she said. "If you know this, if you admit it, then why the games? Why has it been how it is between you two since Paris, in nineteen-ninety nine? Why do you not stop, and find someone who does not cause so much discord?"

Jenny's mouth fell open; she gave Ziva an uncomfortable look. She looked down at her magazine, her eyes on a woman in an evening gown, smiling a star struck, fake smile for a paparazzo.

Ziva leaned over.

"DiNozzo finds this woman very attractive," she remarked.

Jenny looked up at her.

"Jethro and I," she said, pausing, and shrugging. "It's better the devil you know, that's what it is."

Ziva's dark brow furrowed.

"I do not understand—this is another American colloquialism?"

"It means," Jenny started, and bit her lip, "it means you choose the path you know how to navigate, rather than the one filled with unsafe, unknown routes."

Ziva tilted her head thoughtfully, and Jenny gave her a wry, loaded smile. She shrugged again.

"I _like_ him," she said mildly, and turned back to her magazine.

"Besides," she murmured, licking her finger again and flicking matter-of-factly through the magazine, "No one can break my heart like Jethro."

* * *

_-Alexandra_  
_story #104_


End file.
